


The Animate Dead

by Bracket_the_Indecie



Series: The Lamb and the Knives [2]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Canon Divergence - Post-Avengers (2012), Family Feels, Heavier on the Norse Mythology, Loki's family, Set up for the stories to come, Svali is a precious cinnamon roll
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-08
Updated: 2018-08-08
Packaged: 2019-06-23 20:24:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 16,269
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15614301
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bracket_the_Indecie/pseuds/Bracket_the_Indecie
Summary: The Avengers have their first trip off-world - to the land of the dead. While it's not an enjoyable place to be, it is a secret base of operations to figure out how a handful of people can possibly stand up to a Mad Titan. Thanos has an army who has already taken Asgard and only has to figure out how to break Odin's wards on the Tesseract before laying waste to the Nine Realms. Tensions are as high as the stakes, with Loki being swept along by fate with no regard to his own feelings on returning to Jotunheim, and Thor must come to terms with the destruction of his world.





	1. Hail and Welcome Living Ones

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry about the posting delay etc. I am still working on this project, but it's massive and I have other things that my mind is preferring to work on at the moment. But I will post up what I have :)
> 
> This whole work was devised after the first Avengers movie, so the multitude of MCU films that have come after have no bearing on this story. It does borrow more from Norse Mythology, but not very heavily, I have built my own Nine Realms and universe around this sort of thing because I love world building. Hopefully it is interesting for you all :)

Dread and chill ran through the entirety of the party as they followed the grey stone road they had landed on. Loki had insisted he knew the way, having come to Niflheim many times before to visit his daughter, the majestic queen Hel who ruled the world of dead with unparalleled control and discipline. As they walked on torches began to light themselves on the side of the road, tall wooden staves burning at the top with bright white lights, no yellow or orange of a living flame though. The light cut through the fog with surprising ease and allowed the party to look at the structures that were rising out of the fog around them. There was no great variance in the style of building, simply longhouse after longhouse, each building stretched out along the road and some with multiple storeys. 

“After everything you told me about Asgard, I supposed I expected something grander for my first alien world,” Steve said to Thor who had wrapped his cloak tightly around him, keeping the dead chill out as much as possible. 

“Niflheim has never had need for the grandeur of Asgard,” Loki said softly, his voice appearing to stay within the fog and not speaking loudly enough to reach the other side of the dense mist. The Avengers were on high alert, they had no idea what to really expect and what had got the ‘gods’ so riled, even though they had been assured that there should be no threat here. 

“Ten o’clock!” Widow barked and had her pistol trained on the head of a person who had stepped out of one of the longhouses; a young looking Aesir man who appeared to be draining of colour, his skin was pallid, but still shone a little in the grey of the air around them, his dark hair standing out starkly against the dull palette of the building behind him. His eyes shone blankly for a moment until recognition fizzled into him, as though a little life had been breathed into him. 

“Prince Thor,” he said and bowed his head awkwardly. “I hope you have come to save us,” he said, his voice far away and faint. “I will escort you to the queen’s palace.” With no further ceremony, he employed his legs and began to walk, or shamble, up the road, but as he moved further his gait became easier and smoother like he was walking for the first in a long time laid down. 

“Is everyone that creepy?” Tony asked, imitating the hushed tones of Loki and Thor before. 

“What you saw there was not a subject of Niflheim as you would understand one to be,” Loki said. “That was Hel.” 

“What do you mean, does she shape shift like you?” 

“This is a dead world,” Angrboda spoke up, looking behind her to meet eyes with Tony. “Literally. It’s inhabitants are dead and live only through their monarch.” 

“You mean we’ve just entered the zombie nation? Land of the living dead? 28 thousand years later?” 

“This isn’t a movie, Stark,” Angrboda hissed, having to admit that she got every single one of those references. 

“Technically one of them was a song…” 

“You said they live through their monarch?” Bruce asked, stopping Tony before he side tracked everything. 

“They are each essentially a proxy of the queen of this world. A unique and chilling seidr is natural here, it ties the living to the dead, and all the strings around the necks of these people are tethered to the queen, to Hel.” 

“You mean she’s possessing their bodies?” Bruce asked, knowing that was something he never thought he would ever say in a serious context. 

“Not quite, but close enough. I don’t know much about it, I don’t want to know much about it, but I think her seidr permeates these people and overtakes them. I believe something of the original person is retained for a while, but with their spirit gone it fades quickly in time.” 

“From an objective standpoint it is an incredible feat of mental and magical power, to be in command of multiple bodies and minds at any one time, but the sovereign of this place seems to have natural affinity for it,” Loki commented, and while there was some oddity in the way he spoke so approvingly of the zombie-queen, the Avengers were all acutely aware that the queen in question was his daughter and it was only natural that he was the proud father. Not that any of them would want their daughter in such a place, but then again they were from utterly different worlds. 

The fog was lifting a little as a host of torches blazed at the side of the road ahead for they had reached the palace, and it was not quite what the Avengers had been expecting, again. Instead of some grandiose palace or castle, there was a small hall that was wrought of out black bricks and silver mortar, the metal gleaming in the grey sun-moon; it was impossible to tell what kind of celestial body was in the sky other than it gave off white light. 

Two guards in glinting armour stood either side of the doors to the hall and a look passed between their guide and their eyes, which were hidden deep beneath the visors of their helmets. A skeletal hand stretched out from the gauntlet on its arm and bony fingers curled around a handle on the door, opening it for them. 

“Good luck, Prince Thor,” the young man said and turned to go back down the path he had led them up. 

“Where are you going?” Thor asked, suddenly worried for his young courtier. 

“Back to sleep,” he answered and continued down the path. Thor did not hide the look of anguish on his face, he knew it was a taste of what was to come for him as he began to learn the extent of his homeworld’s ravaging at the hands of Thanos. 

“Back to where?” Clint asked, trying to see where the lad was going. 

“The buildings you saw were not homes or shops,” Angrboda said quietly. “They are bunk houses. The dead sleep when not needed by their queen.” 

“I really hope I’m going to wake up in a few minutes and realise this was all that dodgy camembert I had last night,” Tony muttered to himself, earning an elbow from Bruce who silently told the inventor to be more respectful. 

“Do living people ever stay here?” Steve asked as she saw several people in full colour, standing out among the grey and dull of Niflheim’s haze. 

“Some, it is a place of many secrets for those who can bear it,” Angrboda said. 

“Because there are some very colourful people up there,” he pointed out and they moved forward, up the long hall and towards the throne; a very simple thick ebony chair with ivory arm rests and feet. On the chair sat a woman in a golden dress with a white veil over her face, the shimmering fabric standing out in the monochrome light. 

“Court of Niflheim,” Thor addressed the gathered courtiers, “we seek audience with the queen. I am Thor of Asgard.” The figure on the throne rose at once and removed her veil. The Avengers saw a beautiful older lady with a queen’s bearing and a motherly counternance; Thor and Loki saw their mother. 

“Mother!” They both cried out at once and rushed forwards. 

“Oh my sons!” she whispered joyfully and allowed them both to embrace her wholly. “I am so glad I came now to Hel for I knew I would see you here.” 

“You escaped the razing of Asgard?” Thor asked eagerly, kissing his mother on the cheek. 

“I came to help Hel, I knew there would be things I could do, I saw it in my mirror,” she explained and held her sons close once more. “How it comforts me to see you not fighting each other.” 

Several feet away, the Avengers were watching the exchange with disbelief, they all knew Thor was likely to be a total mummy’s boy, but never had they thought they would ever see Loki behave like the little lost boy come home to his mother. Tasha heard a snuffling noise and looked behind her, she saw Angrboda and Svali clutching each other tightly and weeping softly. Their red eyes were wet with tears that ran frozen channels down their faces and the Black Widow tensed, clicking what had happened. Horrified, she turned back to the boys and their mother. 

“How did you escape?” Loki asked eagerly, holding his mother’s hand and caressing it affectionately. 

“It’s difficult to remember exactly what happened,” she said, her face setting into gentle concentration as she struggled to recall. 

“I am sure the attack happened so quickly,” Thor reassured her. 

“Odin had to go to the vault, so I armoured up with Freyja and led the counter attack,” she said, her words slow and laboured. “We slew Chitauri with flashing swords and battleaxes.” 

“Asgard is proud to have such a fine queen,” Thor said, beaming with pride that his mother was still a total badass when the situation dictated. 

“I think….I think I had to defend something, a door but I can’t remember where it was, was it in the palace?” She paused again to concentrate and Loki suddenly realised something was not quite right, Frigga had never shown any difficulty with her memory before, and this was only a few weeks ago, it should not have proved such a hurdle as it appeared to. 

“Hel brought me here,” she said, remembering. Loki was no longer looking at his mother and instead at Tasha who once she had locked gazes with the trickster, shook her head. His eye then flickered to Angrboda and Svali, who told him everything he needed to know. 

“You’re cold, mother,” he said, his voice barely able to rise above a whisper. 

“Yes, it has been some time since I felt truly warm. But I suppose that is to be expected,” she said and looked off to the side of the hall, as though hearing someone speak. 

“Hel will be here shortly, she is just sorting out the newcomers,” she said and extricated herself from Thor’s grasp, Loki’s having already fallen to his side. 

“But mother,” Thor said, reaching out a hand to her, only to have it gently stopped by Loki. Thor looked to Loki whose expression broke his heart in two as realisation crushed him. 

Their mother was dead. 

“But she…” 

“Thor,” Loki said, not sure if he was more trying to comfort his brother or himself, but in that moment he felt like they were plummeting together in their grief as it rose and rose in their hearts, realising with cruel force how the radiant Frigga, mother to gods, was dead and a courtier of Hel now. 

“NO!” Thor roared and slammed Mjollnir into the ground, shattering the grey stone beneath it and cracking it for a good few feet around him. The Avengers all took several steps back as they prepared themselves to witness the explosive grief of the thunderer at being confronted with his deceased mother. 

“NO!” he roared again and there was furious crack of thunder outside which boomed across the sky and rattled the walls of the hall. Hard rain spattered on the roof, soon coming down with such force that it drilled the hall and created a deafening drumming that had most of them reaching for their ears at some point or another. 

“Why father?!” Thor screamed to the roof, to the sky, to the nine realms. “Why did you not let me stay to fight? Why?!” He was flinging his arms about him, he had no idea how to exorcise the painful flood of emotions that had sprung from his heart, threatening to drown him with agonising pangs. Lightning flashed outside, bringing light even into the dark hall and thunder shook the ground as it cracked and boomed in the sky; electricity was arcing over Thor’s armour and skin, even through his hair as his element reacted viscerally with him, joining him in his sorrow with sympathetic lashes. 

The thunderer found his arms restrained as Loki’s long arm wrapped around him, containing him, stopping him from lashing out more and bringing destruction to the hall of Hel and harm to the Avengers who were watching in sorrow and fear. 

“Let me go, Loki!” he cried, struggling, but Loki was holding on for dear life, suppressing the physical extensions of Thor’s anger and trying to contain as well as comfort. 

“Let me go…” he said with much less force and soon crumpled, his anger giving way to pure sorrow and he folded into the arms of his brother who held him tightly, so tightly, simultaneously reminding Thor that they were still alive and also clutching to the thunderer as though letting go might break his world. Tears now flowed freely down both their faces as they rode through the crest of their unbearable grief, and Thor sobbed loudly into Loki’s shoulder, gripping his thin brother for dear life, pushing his loss out with his tears. Loki held Thor as closely as he could, cradling the golden head of the bereft god, pressing his face close and allowing his own choked sobs to come forth.


	2. Hel Half-Queen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The group meet Loki's daughter, Hel, the Queen of Nilfheim and supreme ruler of the dead. If the Avengers thought that people turning into blue giants was as weird as the universe got, they are in for a surreal surprise. Some cope better than others.

It had been some time before the two men had regained some kind of control over their wild grief and eventually Thor was able to raise his head from Loki’s shoulder and they looked each other in the red, puffy eyes and breathe without a shudder or hiccup. In that time, Hel had entered and sat quietly upon her throne and watched in respectful silence at the scene before her. Frigga’s deathly self stood at the side of the throne, a courtier and noblewoman of the court of Niflheim. Hel spared her father and ‘uncle’ a compassionate look, for she had been torn to find the dying form of the queen of Asgard as she picked through the dead on the battlefield. Frigga had died on Hel’s arm and given herself to be of use to Hel if she brought Loki and Thor back to Asgard. 

A look of understanding passed between the two brothers before they left each other’s embrace and turned to the throne, recognising the queen. 

“Queen,” Loki greeted. 

“A day of grieving is not a day of formalities, father,” she spoke softly. "All of you, approach,” she signalled to the Avengers and her family, gesturing for seats to be brought in for them to sit on while they spoke. Silent ghostly servants, all veiled and robed from head to foot, fetched chairs from the outer rim of the hall and a bench. Two iron seats were brought for the frost giants and two golden ones for Loki and Thor as visitors of prestige. 

Now that they were closer, the Midgardians could finally get a good look at this ruler of the strange and creepy world they had found themselves on. Hel seemed split down the middle, on the right side was thick black hair, like her father’s, a bright eye and radiant skin, a true beauty. The other side had a mane of wild white hair and a golden mask that moved like liquid across the half of her face, clearly made and sustained by magic as it acted like a second skin more than a static mask, the gold moved with every blink of the eye it covered, twitch of her brow or words from her lips. She wore funerary black, a tunic beneath a leather cuirass and trousers which were contained by a matching pair of greaves, the brother gauntlets of which were tied on her arms. No one was quite sure what to make of her, or the large axe mounted on the wall behind her throne. Both her radiant and masked sides appeared equally stern and as cold as her father when he was in one of his pure scheming moods. 

“I know what has been happening on Asgard. I have been to the battlefields,” she said, beginning the discussion. “I have many Aesir in my longhouses now. They will live for a long time on Niflheim and bring honour to their names by being chosen to serve here. Their influence will continue on into and through death.” It sounded like a formality, a statement of honour made to satisfy Thor as the new and sudden King of the fallen realm, but they could hear the sincerity in her voice, even if she was trying her best to remain impartial. 

“What can you tell us?” Steve asked, knowing all too well the usefulness of work in the face of seemingly insurmountable grief. 

“Asgard has fallen. In its current state it cannot reclaim itself, however, The Titan has not yet put the survivors all to the altar.” 

"Why hasn't he killed everyone already?" 

"I believe he is going to put the nine realms to the altar at the same time, a mass sacrifice that he feels She cannot ignore." 

"Then why haven't we been invaded already?" 

"My guess is that he currently lacks the power to do so. He is looking for the tesseract in order to tap into near infinite power. He lost too many of his Chitauri when you wiped them out to launch a direct attack upon the rest of the nine realms. This gives us a window of opportunity." 

"How long do you think we have?" Clint asked, knowing that working to a schedule is much better than working to some vague target. 

"That is difficult to say, Clint Barton," Hel responded. He started. 

"How do you know my name? We've not done any introductions." 

"For the time you stand on my hallow ground I see your name and the death that hangs around you. Each of you are drenched in death, murder and witness to slaughter. You fit in well here," she said and no one was sure if that was a compliment or not. "All but one, but the innocence of the young is finite," she added, looking to her brother, raking him with appraising eyes, reading far more than just his expression. 

"Odin King of Asgard hid the tesseract very, very well and it will take time for the Eternal One to break the seals and solve the riddles that guard the jewel, but it is certain that he will have it." 

"So we just have to move quickly then, is that what you're saying?" Steve clarified. 

"Yes, but I believe we have more time than just raising armies. We must be clever, force is not the only option open to us, nor will it win us this battle alone.” 

"How many of them can there be?" Steve asked. "Obviously it would have taken a lot to take Asgard, but he has to have suffered losses from that, but Earth is willing to put soldiers in, are you?" Hel looked amused. 

"Take a look around you, Steven Rogers," she commanded in a low voice. "Remove your veils." The court shuffled into life, the people removing their veils or helmets and revealing their faces. The Midgardians visibly recoiled and Tony even made an alarmed sound; the court where in varying states of natural decay and rot. There were no maggots wreathing in eyesockets, but the flesh was shrunken peeling on the oldest members of the court. One guard was little more than a skeleton beneath his heavy armour. 

"Good god..." Steven gasped in horror. Hel flicked her hand and they replaced their coverings obediently and silently. 

"My army is only as vast as the dead, Steven Rogers," Hel said, answering his question with a dark look in her eyes, her golden mask now slightly more prominent than her radiant half. "And if I am called to raise an army of the dead, what victory will that be? I will have reclaimed Asgard only to make it a necropolis." 

"I'm sorry, excuse me," Bruce said squeamishly and left the hall from the door they had come through. He needed air, or since that seemed to be still and stale in this world, at least to get away from the walking corpses inside the hall. He could feel the eyes of the rotting guards on him as he stumbled onto a rock and tried to keep his stomach in. How bizarre that he was prepared to see the freshly dead and dying on a battlefield, but not the long-since deceased. He supposed, as a doctor (and the Other Guy) and as a human, he was used to seeing life so close at hand in the bodies that moved, but what he knew to be true about this world rebelled against everything he had thought natural and orderly in the universe. Perhaps Tony was right to be suspicious and cautious of magic if it did things like this. 

He breathed hard through his nose to push the nausea down and out through his mouth to improve circulation and hope his body was not going to expel the contents of his stomach outside an alien queen's palace. After a moment, he heard the door open behind him and someone come through. To his utter surprise, it was Loki. 

"Perhaps I should have warned you," he said and approached Bruce, but did not touch him, or even really invade his personal space. Bruce looked up. 

"You think?" he said with non-malicious sarcasm. The trickster was pale naturally, and it seemed to be enhanced here, though his skin clearly still had colour against the drab grey all around them. The pinked scars that slashed his face and twisted his lips stood out starkly, practically shining into the dull twilight. 

"This is...like nothing I've ever known before." 

"I did say we were going to the land of the dead." 

"I didn't think you meant that literally." Loki said nothing. "I didn't mean to offend anyone, but when she said about each of us having some kind of aura of killing, I suppose I kinda freaked out," he said honestly. Loki did not need elaboration to know about Banner's guilt knowing that his wrathful form killed indiscriminately and not even purposely, just many fragile humans happened to get in the way of his rampages. It was clear that Bruce tried to separate himself from 'The Other Guy' as much as possible to try and survive the conflict and guilt that surrounded an unleashing of the Hulk. 

"But what am I saying, this is nothing compared to what you must be going through," he said, fixing Loki an empathetic look, clearly referring to their realisation that Frigga was no longer living. 

"She died for something. The only way I can honour her now is to pick up her sword and drive it through the heart of that beast." 

"If I can help you do that, or if the Other Guy can, I'll do it," Bruce promised solemnly. Loki blinked and stared. He was still not used to this kind of generosity on the parts of his old foes and he couldn't help but regard Banner with suspicion. Instead, he nodded and Bruce got to his feet. They re-entered the hall silently. Most of the Avengers were on their feet, waiting their return and half expecting to have seen Loki get thrown through the walls of the hall by a very angry very big green guy. 

“Something about my realm and its people disgusts you Dr Banner?” Hel asked snidely. Loki gave her a disapproving glare. 

“Play nice,” he warned in an unmistakable fatherly tone. Hel eyed him with a hard look, but ultimately conceded; she had not been told off by her father in a long time. 

“Re-join us. There is still much to discuss.” She indicated to the chairs and, with a heavy breath to keep down the last of the residual nausea down and cleared his throat to show he was ready to talk again. He could feel the hot stare of an inquisitive Tasha so he just gave her a slightly uneasy smile to reassure her that he was alright and was not going to ‘crack under the stress’ as it were.


	3. Fighting Talk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hel lays out her plans for how a handful of people might stand a chance against the might of the Mad Titan. Not everyone is convinced it is a good plan, and the Avengers have a lot of questions to ask. Yet...they can't deny it does sound exciting. Even so, Tony's dislike of magic is starting to show and when he gets antsy, he gets argumentative.

“Alright, you said that there were other ways of winning this other than just by storming the keep tomorrow,” Tony said, eager to hear what the clever way of doing things would be, rather than just hitting the other guy really hard as soon as possible. 

“This is a battle for the nine realms, is it not?” Hel asked, rhetorically. “Then the nine realms should stand against this monster.” 

“You mean unite the kingdoms of Yggdrasil?” Angrboda spluttered, caught off-guard by the suggestion. “You would have better luck repairing Skadi and Njord’s marriage,” she said dismissively. 

“If we don’t there will be barely anything left of the fruit of Yggdrasil, mother,” Hel rebuked, stern but not severe. 

“What do you mean?” Thor asked. 

“Each of the nine worlds stands on the brink of failure. Asgard has fallen, Jotunheim is torn apart, the fire giants are ravaged by plague, the Dark Elves are dying out,” she said, grimly. She pointed to a tapestry on the wall on which was woven depictions of the places they were talking about. “The Light Elves of Alfheim are so detached from the material and the other realms that they face vanishing into magic altogether; the Dwaves do not come out easily and so would be left alone to fight and Vanaheim has become so passive that it may simply cease to be.” 

“I did not know…” Thor said, contemplating the woeful state of the fruit of Yggdrasil. 

“Asgard has kept its walls up to other worlds for several centuries, I am not surprised we did not know,” Loki said, his game face settling in now. 

“I was going to say that at least we weren’t doing too badly, but that’s not really true is it?” Tony said, thinking of all the ways Earth was heading for self-destruction, mostly by humanity’s own hand. Hel gave him a hard look and he looked away in concession. 

“Your problem is unity, you are not a whole world. If you amend that, you will be fit for dealings on this scale.” 

“You really think we can make world peace in, what? A few weeks, a few months? How long do we have anyway?” Clint asked. 

“We have near a year,” Hel answered, pacing a glance at the serene figure of Frigga. “The queen of the golden realm gave me two instructions as she passed; to bring the sons of Asgard back home and that I had a year to do it in.” 

“And we’re ok to trust that?” Tony asked, his natural dislike of magic happily adding to his scepticism in this case. 

“Her Sight was as Odin’s power, I see no reason to doubt it.” 

“She never told anyone what she saw, why did she tell you that?” Thor asked. 

“When you see the end of everything you know, would you not do what could be done to stop it? She knew you were the only ones who could rid Yggdrasil of The Titan’s threat, and I bow to her wisdom.” 

“Right, I just want everyone to know that I’m totally not comfortable with this,” Tony said, raising his hands defensively. “Maybe I’m just an ignorant heathen, but I really don’t want to hinge the fate of the universe on what a…lovely lady saw in her magic mirror,” he said, remembering to be very nice about the former queen of Asgard who was sort of standing over the way and the fact that she was Thor’s mother. 

“You are free to suggest another course of action, Anthony Stark,” Hel said pointedly, her golden eyebrow raised. 

“I don’t have a lot of the facts that you do. Isn’t there something else you can suggest? Something a bit more grounded in nice, tangible facts?” Svali was looking at Tony very strangely; magic had been such an integral part of his life since before he could remember, and having not spent much time around the largely magic-less world of Midgard, he could not fathom how anyone could live without it or in such ignorance of it. 

“The plan has merits other than being the dying wish of the queen of Asgard,” Hel remarked and Tony had to shut up at that point as he was very aware of the soreness of that point on the rather more powerful beings in the room. 

“I suppose a stable cosmos would be beneficial for everyone after the war, assuming we’re successful of course,” Bruce said, who had been thinking about the logic of the plan while Tony had been distracted by the magic. 

“Precisely,” Hel agreed and her beauteous part of her face looked kindly on Dr Banner. “We cannot expend everything we have to fight this evil or we may as well allow ourselves to be put to the altar if we ruin our worlds for the victory.” 

“Surely it’s better to go out for something than sit around and wait to be slaughtered?” Clint spoke up, finding great problems with that reasoning. 

“We’ll be dead by then Barton,” Angrboda said very quietly. “And the dead don’t care.” There was an understanding silence. 

“I’ll care when I’m still alive, and if the dead don’t care I’m going to make damn sure I care every second I’m alive!” he declared and Steve found himself nodding in agreement. 

“Clint’s right, we need to fight for something. But I don’t believe our situation is as hopeless as all that, there’s always a chance. We’re all willing to fight and give our all to make sure this guy doesn’t get that tesseract. We just need to be pointed in the right direction.” 

“Not everything is won with the blunt instrument,” Loki said. 

“The six of us stood up to an army of thousands,” Tasha said, speaking her mind clearly. “We can be the blunt instrument when it’s needed, but we have far more to offer than just Iron Man’s weapons platform and Bruce on a bad day.” Her tone was a little indignant, she did not like how they were constantly underrated by these ‘gods’ who seemed to think the humans would make good cannon fodder against the Chitauri, but had the minds of children nonetheless. “And it’s one you created,” she said, with a piercing glance at Loki. “So where are we going to do the most damage to him?” 

“What about afterwards?” Svali said. All heads turned to him. “Imagine we are successful and save Yggdrasil from him, what then?” 

“An excellent question, brother,” Hel said, her beautiful eye glittering with happiness. “This is another reason we need to save the fruit of the great tree. If one is weak and the others strong then that world will be attacked due to some ancient grudge. This is a threat to all of us and we must face it together, unite or we will be divided and conquered.” 

“Newly strengthened worlds may attack each other anyway,” Loki said, not keeping any faith in the honour of the other realms. “What is to stop the Vanir marching to Asgard once this is all over and asserting their claim on the realm? Or the dark elves from stealing the secrets of Alfheim or Nidavallir to make war?” 

“But that would mean we wouldn’t have been united when we faced The Titan,” Svali said. “Just a gathering of people who happened to be fighting at the same time.” 

“Like us,” Tony said, drawing the parallels instantly. He looked at his fellow Avengers. “Think about it, when Shield first thought about bringing us together it was a recipe for disaster. Hell, that time we were in the lab just before the helicarrier was attacked, we were all stood around arguing. I was ready to go mano-a-mano with you, Cap,” he said, and everyone remembered potently how badly things had initially gone between them. “Now we’re bros.” He paused. “Sounds so much better when I say it,” he muttered to himself. “But the point is, if something like that happened on a planetary scale we would have a far better chance of winning this because we wouldn’t be watching our backs all the time or trying to push our own agendas.” 

“I admire your ambition, Starkson,” Thor said heavily. “But the grudges and hatreds go back tens of thousands of years, on a scale you humans cannot appreciate with your short lives.” 

“Yeah, thanks for that,” Clint said, rather bitterly. “Just because we don’t live as long doesn’t mean we don’t understand, we’re not children for god’s sake. If anything, we’re a speeded up version of you lot and you should know that sometimes ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’ paves the way for better friendship.” 

“Great threats have come to Yggdrasil before,” Thor countered, “and never did unity last; only until the next foolish word. Do you imagine the frost giants will ever stand side by side with my people since a prince of Asgard tried to destroy their world?” Loki squirmed. 

“Actually, they might,” he said awkwardly and Thor’s eyes whipped to his brother. 

“How so?” 

“I was not just any stolen child, I was Laufey’s son.” 

“Father told me,” Thor said gravely. 

“Which means the throne is mine.” There was astonished silence. 

“You mean you blew a hole in the planet and now you’re going to go and be their king?!” Tony exclaimed, unable to help himself. 

“I never wanted the throne of any world!” Loki snapped, “not even Asgard, and the thought of going to Jotunheim to rule it is madness, even for me.” 

“But if it worked the benefits could be enormous,” Angrboda said carefully. She was wary about getting into a conflict with Loki, given their precarious feelings about one another right now, but pragmatism was heavy in the air and she could not be silent when there was a case to be made. 

“An ancient grudge could be slowly washed away. The Aesir would no longer style themselves as giant-killers and seek war with my people, and the Jotnar would have no reason to scheme against the throne of Gladsheim.” 

“An army of Asgard and Jotunheim…” Thor contemplated aloud and in wonder. “There would be no line we could not cut through. Even the vast numbers of Chitauri would tremble and break before such a force.” He was coming round to the idea of the kingdoms united. 

“Just one problem,” Tasha said, bringing everyone back to earth. “Unless there is an alien Coulson, I don’t see how that galvanisation is going to happen.” Tony looked away purposely, turning his back on the group, not wanting to reconcile the painful fact that had been brought to the fore of his mind; he had been offering sanctuary and comfort to Phil’s killer. “That was why you killed him, wasn’t it?” Her eyes bore directly into Loki’s and he met her dangerous stare with a grim one of his own. 

“Yes. It was the flashpoint you needed,” Loki said, his tone cold. “All of you would have done anything to avenge him, including work together.” 

“And you had to-“ Tony near-shouted, spinning round to fix Loki with a look of conflict, appalled. “Ok, now is not the time, but you and I will be having words about this later. And I’ll be wearing my best threads,” he threatened and Thor stood up, planting himself firmly in front of Tony’s squared shoulders. 

“If you think you will hurt my brother…” 

“He has the right, Thor,” Loki said, calling his over-protective brother off. The scarred god took Thor’s place and stared Tony straight in the eyes. “If this is over, and we survive, I will meet you in battle and you can have your best shot if you think you can take me,” he promised. Tony’s jaw twitched. 

“You’re on, frosty,” he promised, but there was no bitter hatred in his voice. He had had time to move on what happened to Phil, and this would be a match more about honouring the agent’s memory than avenging him. It was shitty that he had to die, but perhaps he had died for something special and Tony would do everything he could to make sure it counted. 

“You people are such firebrands,” Hel said in genuine wonderment at the Midgardian guests. “No wonder the nine realms have been so quiet since they withdrew from your world, you started most of the interesting things that would happen to them.”


	4. The Roots of the Universe

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hel's plans have something specific in mind for the Avengers and she presents them with an opportunity that is tantalising as it is terrifying. Important decisions must be made before tomorrow

“Hel,” Angrboda said, getting her daughter’s attention. “Might I drink from your well?” 

“Of course, mother. The well-spring has moved since last you were here. Neir will show you the way.” A figure in leather armour stepped forward and ushered the Jotun bearer out of the hall. 

“You have clearly had some time to think about this situation, what have you planned?” Loki asked his child, knowing that her persistence on this course of action had to lead to something, or she would not have suggested it. 

“Send an emissary to each world and petition it for aid. We must give them a common cause to fight for, and to stop us all being put to the altar would be a very good place to start.” 

“Wouldn’t some see that simply as an opportunity to get rid of some enemies?” Bruce suggested, not sure where Hel was going with this. 

“Not if he plans to kill us all at once and with the power of the tesseract he will be able to do just that. That jewel is like the sap of Yggdrasil, through it flows the power of the universe. Drive such a stake through the heart of the great tree and it will crack into hundreds of pieces, destroying all the life that relies upon it, from the leafy top to the well feeding the bottom-most root.” 

“And you also said that we need proper unity, how is asking everyone to pitch in not what we suggested before?” Tony asked. 

“Where else are we supposed to start? Unless, of course, you have a magic mirror and could tell me what the flashpoint is?” Hel rebuked. Tony was stumped for a moment, opening his mouth a couple of times to sass her back, but found the well of his clever retorts run dry for the moment. 

“Fortunately, there are just about enough of you to each go to a realm and begin the process.” There was a horrified silence as the stomachs of most of the humans bottomed out. 

“Sorry, what?” Bruce asked, pretty sure this qualified as an ‘overly stressful’ mission. 

“You came here to help, did you not? I thought you wanted to be involved in the dealings of the nine realms. What else did you think we would be doing? Do you honestly believe that the only way to stand up to such an enemy was to hit it?” Hel said, derisively. 

“You stood up against Chitauri warriors who have superior physical strength and longevity than you, so you cannot use that as an excuse,” Loki commented off-hand, as though it was an academic matter. He was finding escape in trying to view the whole matter clinically instead of confronting the truth that he was facing the throne of Jotunheim. He was not even sure what he thought of his own heritage and form yet, let alone willing to go to the planet and then even consider becoming its ruler to whom all the giants were bound by blood. 

“We’ve never been off our own planet before this, how are we in any way qualified?” Bruce protested, but the others were quietly excited about the prospect; excitement that, admittedly, was in the shadow of looming fear and horror at the prospect too, but there was a streak in each of them that wanted to seek new life-forms and new civilisations et al. 

“You are politically unaffiliated. If you explain that you came from here then your neutrality is credible. Don’t mention your dealings with Asgard’s prince-king and you will have your foot already well in the door. Besides, it is not as though you are all completely unskilled. There will be much about you to catch the interest and eye of the other realms.” 

“This is nuts, but I’m sort of tempted to say yes,” Clint said, speaking what the team seemed to the be thinking to a greater or lesser degree. 

“How would we travel?” Loki asked, his questions once more practical. “We cannot each travel by the Casket alone and such an increase in activity would surely be eventually noticed by enemy forces.” 

“I have not been idle,” Hel said, rather smugly and stood up from her throne. She beckoned them with a hand gesture to follow her and the group stood up and filed on after her, brought up by two torch-bearing veiled servants. She led them out of the door Angrboda had done through and into the room where a fresh well bubbled gently in the centre. The frost giant was stood in front of the well, her cup nearly empty of water; she was staring up at the magnificent statue of a truly fearsome looking giant who stood towering above them all, a real, metal great hammer in its stone hands. 

“A true champion of Jotunheim,” Hel said to her mother as she approached. “They served Niflheim to the highest order, defending the sanctity of this world when it was threatened by the dark elves trying to covet my secrets. You see the name?” Angrboda cast her eyes down to the writing on the plinth, what looked to the untrained eye like simply cracked glass or ice, but the giant recognised as the script of her own people. Her eyes widened at the name as she recognised who the statue was of. 

“A Jotnar of magnificent blood-heritage,” Hel commented and Angrboda nodded vaguely, knowing that the child of Laufey and Farbauti was blessed indeed. All this would have to come later, if Loki chose to learn of his lineage and the magnificence he descended from. “But come now, I will show you what I have been doing and what my part in this will be.” 

She led them further into the depths of her palace, until they came to a small set of stairs in what most of them had mistaken for a storage cupboard. The steps felt never-ending, down and down they went into the deep earth of Niflheim. After several minutes of simple stepping, most of which fell into time after a while, they noticed the small corridor began to warm and that strange utter absence of heat and life that was oppressive on the surface was being lifted away. Light also began to creep up the stairwell in tentative rays, lending actual colour to this otherwise monochrome world. Enthused by the energy coming from below, the party’s steps quickened and the last few rounds of the stairwell stepped out into a magnificent cave that seemed to drop out in front of them. 

There was a sloping stone pathway that led down to the great basin at the bottom of the cave, the ground glistening with a couple of centimetres of water and reflecting the many wonders the gigantic cave had to offer. The air space of the expanse was punctuated by many stalactites and stalagmites punching up from the earth and dripping down from the roof of the cavern, each glittering with tiny specks of crystal, reflecting back the light being poured into the cavern from the recesses in the wall. These were the main feature of the cavern: eight huge almond shaped recesses in the rock all glowing with astounding energy pulsing and humming, like portals. Each light was different, and a different effect was happening around the mouth of each portal, for instance there was one that shone bright and piercing blue with ice shards formed around the rock of the portal and there was a bitter cold wind that sometimes came howling through it. 

Thor said something in a language the Avengers did not understand, though they took to be the native language of Asgard. Other awe-inspired curses spilled from the mouths of the others present and Tony’s eyes had never looked so huge as when presented with this feast of magic, but there was something far beyond the usual ‘trickery’ of Hel and Loki’s seidr and he could not help but feel inspired by this place. 

“What is this place?” Steve asked, staring at the huge portals which were as tall and as wide as about four of him and as wide. 

“Each of the nine realms is connected to the world tree,” Hel explained, leading the party down the slope. “Niflheim sits at the very roots of Yggdrasil and, as the land of the dead, was given routes to each of the other worlds by the paths of the tree itself.” 

“So you could travel to other worlds and take your pick of their dead,” Loki said as he looked around. He had never seen the hub of Niflheim and stood as awed as the rest of the party. 

“Yes. The need to traverse the tree by this method all but died out when the nine relics were forged.” 

“The Casket of Ancient Winters, Gungnir King-Spear and the others were part of nine holy relics created using parts of Yggdrasil itself,” Angrboda explained to the Midgardians who would not know this deep lore. “They were made using the fabric of the universe, similar to the tesseract, but not on the same scale as that artefact. Among the many things they can do is to make a bridge on which we travel to other worlds.” 

“It was the principal on which the bifrost was built,” Hel added, bringing in a point of reference. “Since the relics could provide the transport required, these passages were no longer needed and most were sealed away or allowed to be overgrown.” 

Hel stopped at the edge of the thin layer of water and stooped to removed her shoes. She summoned a long dark cloak to cover her body and hid her bared feet inside it as she stepped barefoot into the water. Steve and Bruce went to follow suit, but she stopped them. 

“That liquid is not water, it is seidr, the juice of Yggrdasil running through its veins. It eases the passage between worlds.” 

“Interplanetary lube? Great,” Tony said and Clint and Bruce passed him such a filthy glare that even the great Tony Stark had to have the decency to look a little ashamed. 

“But how do you know this?” Thor asked of Loki, who seemed to be the least surprised of the party. 

“I have picked my way along the branches of Yggdrasil before, though mainly from Asgard to Alfheim, but once or twice to Jotunheim.” 

“This is how you sneaked frost giants on to Asgard without Heimdall seeing!” Thor exclaimed, the whole process falling into place. 

“Yes, did Odin not tell you that?” 

“No.” Loki barked a sharp laugh of triumph. 

“Then even the great Allfather did not realise I had used Yggdrasil itself to wander!” He looked positively gleeful at having got one over the old king. 

“This is how I will help,” Hel declared loudly, breaking up the conversation which had side-tracked somewhat. “I have spent much of my time and energy since the first sight of the Eternal One clearing this place and all the detritus that had formed in the paths themselves and the doors on the other side. You may enter each realm unseen and unnoticed, for these places were sealed in antiquity with the gift of the nine relics.” There was stunned silence as they all began to realise that with this sort of easy transportation that this wild plan was far more possible than they had thought ten minutes ago. 

“Does this mean,” Thor said, stepping, shoed, into the water and to the side of Hel, “that I can truly go home now?” Her fair side smiled beautifully and widely. 

“Yes, King Thor, you may return to your people.” 

“My sincere thanks, Queen,” he said with a respectful incline of his head. Her radiant side smiled a little more widely and she turned to him, though they noticed that her unmasked side faced him a little more prominently. 

“I do not hold you responsible for the persecution of my father, uncle, you may address me as kin. Your world shall be reclaimed from the taint of the Eternal One and this is my gesture.” In the warmest they had ever seen her, she embraced Thor with her right arm, holding him closely for a second before stepping away and turning to face the others. 

“Avengers of Midgard,” she said, her voice low and grim again, her golden liquid mask flashing in the spectrum of light thrown by the portals. “You have a choice. You can each go to a different realm and help us gather the support we need to drive out this evil, or you may return to your world and hope to weather this storm on your own. You shall have a day. After that time you will go forth through one of these portals, perhaps to a new and alien world to help save the very tree on which you were born and live upon, or you will step through this one to your homes.” She pointed to a portal which had flowers and tall grasses growing in tufts around the edges of the stone and sand falling steadily from the top of the archway; the light was as if shone through a prism, flashing different vibrant colours as the invisible crystal turned. 

“And you, father,” she said, turning to Loki, who looked as though the weight of worlds was settling upon his recalcitrant shoulders. He knew that she was about to tell him to make his choice in regards to the throne of Jotunheim and that she believes he should go forth and claim his birth right, but kingship was not something he had ever truly sought and, all the complicating factors aside, he was not sure if he would be a suitable candidate to put on a throne of anywhere, let alone Jotunheim. As Hel was a queen of one of the nine realms when she put it to him it was going to feel somehow more legitimate than when Angrboda had told him, or when he had touched the Casket and felt it in his bones. 

“You know what I am going to say,” she said, reading the look of part-dread on his face. “You are the blood-sovereign of Jotunheim, the realm of the ice giants and your place is on the glacial throne at the footsteps of the holy mountain. Take your wife and your son, step through that portal and prove yourself to Jotunheim and then to all of Yggdrasil that you are a mighty sovereign, a name to be remembered until the breaking of the tree.” Hel moved her hand to the blue portal and it seemed to truly open, the light brightening, becoming more intense and draining all the other colours from the room until only ice was left in colour and in temperature as ice and snow rushed into the cavern, the howling wind screeching around the echoing cavern, ringing in their ears. His body reacted as it was battered by the ferocity of a dying world and the change came far easier to him this time, his body remembering what to do and how exactly to change. 

Hel stepped up to him, laying her bare hand on his chest, feeling the harsh heartbeat pounding at his chest. 

“This will be your saga, my father, but let the poets never forget that you had allies; the thunderer, king of Asgard, the Avengers of Midgard’s highest stature, Angrboda who has been kissed by the seidr of the tree, the young Svali who shall prove his power in this conflict and your loving daughter.” Her face, for a few moments, forgot the trappings of a stern queen and was instead that of an adoring child showing her greatest faith in her father. His face was also open, openly worried and afraid of the path before him, and he looked to the howling portal, noting how he enjoyed the cool air on his face, and for a second he found himself drawn to the realm as a lost man is homesick. When Hel stepped back, she fell back into her usual countenance as she waved the portal closed and the screeching wind snapping into silence, the snow melting into the water. 

“Let us reconvene in a day’s time. There are rooms available for you when you return to the hall.” 

“Aren’t you coming back up?” Angrboda asked. 

“I must go to Asgard to claim my rightful dead and will be back later,” she explained and waved the portal to Agsard open. It flooded the cavern with the deeply golden light of the finest summer shine of a powerful sun and the smell of gold, if ever it were to have a smell. No one, however, could deny there was a strange strain of rot in the air, the dead of Asgard wafting through the tree itself and Thor ground his teeth as his eyes filled with evidence of his sorrow for his world. He was afraid for his loved ones, afraid for his people and ridden with the frustration and guilt of one who must wait to make the most difference to his people. Hel stepped through and was quickly eaten by the light, the portal closing behind her and the smells disappeared, only the comparatively mute lights of the closed portals lighting the cave.


	5. The Name of the Sovereign

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Loki finds out something important about his heritage, something that makes him think perhaps he is not descended solely from monsters after all. He must finally face the fate that the Norns are pushing him towards and he must decide whether to embrace it, or flee.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: Please remember that ‘saer’ is the Jotun word for ‘person/he/she/them’

The next morning was a long time coming for the travellers to Niflheim, for none but Svali seemed to have got any sleep whatsoever. The Avengers had spent a large portion of the night in one room, debating whether they should take up the offer, or if they should travel as a group, or just hole up in Midgard. After a few hours of discussion, they came to a loose agreement that this was not a mission, it was a personal decision and that they would each decide for themselves come the time when Hel asked them. They had spent the rest of the night away from each other in quiet contemplation, though their rooms were close and they could hear each other pacing or getting a drink. Food was brought to the rooms in the form of luminescent golden apples and while they were not terribly hungry, the fruit looked too appetising and they all had at least one, which proved to be strangely filling. They put this down to their general lack of appetite from the situation at hand. Thor had left the hall to take a long walk around the central ‘town’ that had built up around the palace, followed by a veiled figure who had been told to stick close unless Thor got lost and ended up walking the dull roads of Niflheim for years. 

Angrboda had spent some time in the room with the fountain and the statue in it, contemplating the statue and what a possible return to Jotunheim would mean. She also had her relationship with Loki to consider heavily, about whether the divisive factors of lies and attempted genocide would be enough strain to break their feelings. She had spent four hundred years waiting to return to her love, but as soon as they were reunited in earnest it seemed that fate had different ideas and brought them to book finally with each other. It felt like such a waste, to have continued the strength of her feelings for so long and not even to have a brief period of happy unity before her actions finally rebounded and she had to face the consequences of them. Perhaps she had got away with it for far too long and this was long overdue. Hel had referred to Angrboda as Loki’s wife, even though everyone in that cavern knew that no such ceremony had taken place, they had never reached the bough of sacred Ash that was the proxy of Yggdrasil and made their knots and oaths. Perhaps she meant that in heart they were wed, without the external trapping and magical seals that came with the ceremonies. 

This was where Loki had found the frost giant who now spent very little time out of her Jotun form. 

“Who is that?” he asked, himself back in his habitual Aesir form. 

“Hel said saer was a great hero. I don’t remember that much about them.” 

“You knew them?” 

“Yes, this is Farbauti. Your Sire.” Loki’s shape intake of breath was audible and he returned to his examination of the statue with renewed interest. This giant was truly massive, even for the standard of the Jotuns, jagged sacral markings looking more like scars than the birthlines present on every Jotun . There were also two large and prominent horns on the forehead which curled to the back slightly. 

“I’ve never seen Jotuns with horns,” Loki said, wondering if they had emerged from the sculptor’s imagination. 

“Every Jotun has them,” Angrboda said with a small smile. “They are traditionally cut off when one has suffered a great personal tragedy, like the death of a spouse or child. I wouldn’t be surprised if every giant has kept their horns sawn short for as long as the Casket has remained in Odin’s vault.” His eyes flickered to her own head and she laughed as she knew he was looking for hers. 

“Mine grow in my hairline,” she said and bent her head forward, parting her hair on one side, revealing a hard ivory stump, smoothly filed down, about the size of a large coin. Loki looked visibly shocked. “There is so much you don’t know,” she said sadly. Loki’s own hand went up to his head and felt around tentatively, not sure how he would react if he did find his own horns. 

“You won’t find yours yet, you haven’t been in this form enough for them to grow properly ,” she said, amused at his intrigued reaction, it was so much more like the ever inquisitive Loki she used to know. 

“Where would they be, do you know?” he asked. She eyed him warily, not sure if she wanted to get this close so quickly. Despite her reservations, she carefully raised her hands and, still unsure, put her finger tips on his forehead and began feeling around his bony features. After a few moments of searching, something that had echoes of their once easy intimacy, she came across two very hard parts of his skull, roughly round and at the very point of his hairline, so if he were to ever grow them, his hair would fall around the base of his horns. She couldn’t help but picture what that might look like, perhaps some ritual braids falling around his face in the furs of the sovereign and the Casket answering his call. She looked away quickly, shaking the image from her mind as his fingers replace hers and he feels the strange new additions to his body. 

After a short while, Loki returned his attention to the statue and noticed the markings on the bottom, recognising as ordered enough to be writing. 

“What does the inscription say?” he asked softly. 

“It says that this is Farbauti, the Storm of the North. ‘Farbauti, first amongst the frost giants and the bulwark that stood against evil when called upon to their duty to Niflheim.’ I think saer must have been destroyed in a battle after they were taken into Hel’s service.” Loki nodded, wondering if perhaps at least one side of his heritage wasn’t utterly monstrous. Hel clearly valued Farbauti enough to have a statue built in her own palace. “It also gives the last act of the Storm of the North.” 

“Is that how he died?” 

“No, Farbauti’s last act,” she paraphrased as she read, “was to name saer’s last child, the one they never got to see.” Loki stared at the markings on the plinth, uselessly hoping that they would suddenly make sense to him. Now he had a better idea of who his real father was he was finding solace in the good things he had apparently done, making Loki feel for the first time since he had found out about his heritage, that he perhaps came from decent stock and was not a monster by default. 

“What is it? What is my name?” he whispered, breathless with anticipation. 

“’I name my child Utgard, after the holy place of my tribe which dwells in the deepest ice where the seidr lies.” 

“Utgard?” he repeated, testing out his new name on his tongue. 

“It is Jotnar tradition to name the children after places,” Angrboda explained. “I was named after a city that was destroyed by the most terrible storm to have ever brewed on Jotunheim as a reminder of the power of natural forces, to raze even the proudest settlement.” 

“What about Svali?” 

“That is a name from legend, it is said that when dragons flew the skies of Jotunheim that Svali was the place they laid their eggs.” 

“So if I am to take the role of sovereign,” Loki said slowly, hesitantly. “I would become Utgard?” His implication that he would lose everything he had accomplished and done as Loki behind, was not needed to be spoken. 

“I do not think so,” she said. “I think Loki is too much a part of you, after all, you may be born of Jotun parents, but you were still raised by Aesir and in the way of Asgard. I don’t think you should discard that because you would leave so much of yourself behind.” She wanted to add ‘such as me’ to the end of that sentence, but elected to close her mouth at the last second. She wasn’t sure she wanted to invite that part of the conversation yet, even though she could feel it coming soon. 

“If I were to go to Jotunheim, would you come with me? Help me?” he asked, sincerely. If Angrboda had not known Loki as well as she did, she would have made the mistake of believing he had forgiven her, because he was showing no animosity at this moment, asking for her help. But she knew he would bide his time and hold the grudge for possibly a very long time if his previous behaviour was anything to go by. What she did not know was that Loki was finding it very hard to maintain his anger at her and in fact was having to remind himself that he was still mad at her in the first place more than having to check his anger at the door as it were. 

“On one condition,” she said after many pregnant seconds of thought. 

“And what would that be?” he asked, wary of what she was going to ask for. 

“A pardon. Welcome me back into the fold; let my blood run in the snow of my world again and extend the same to Svali.” Loki narrowed his eyes as he contemplated the hardness of the bargain she was driving. On the one hand, if he successfully put himself on the throne of Jotunheim then a pardon would be something he would have the power to grant (she wouldn’t have asked it of him otherwise), but as to how easy it would be he had no clue. It was unlikely to be a matter of saying a few words and whooshing a little seidr around as it was more probable it was a complex ceremony involving plenty of bloodletting. However, the overwhelming fact was that there was very little chance of even getting in the door without her, as someone to steer him through the culture, even their language, she was indispensable. There was also the fact that there was a big part of him that wanted her close and looked forward to being close to her, no matter how much he tried to deny it. 

“Agreed,” he said after a minute and understood that he had realistically just committed himself to seeking the glacial throne and that his life was about to take the single most unexpected turn. But, as had always been the case since their first kiss on Alfheim, he felt stronger and surer beside her, even with the doubts lingering between them like an ever-present cloud. 

“So you’re really going to do it?” she asked, trying to contain her sense of eagerness. 

“It seems I have no choice,” he said, not entirely convinced that that was the case because he seemed capable of denying anything he did not like, but this had a decidedly different feel about it. This was not about simply bowing to the pressures that others were placing upon him as it was about feeling the ribbons of fate twist around his hand and lead him on his journey. Perhaps the Norns were watching him, planning an elaborate fate for him. He supposed he would never know and had long ago come to the wise conclusion that one could never live one’s life by dwelling on the nature of fate and the roles those three sisters played in it; he would go mad otherwise. 

“Of course you do,” Angrboda chastised, in a way that was very familiar to Loki. “But you already know that. It is not like anyone could ever drag you somewhere you did not want to be. Not even Thor when he was determined that you should come and spar with his new friends that day on Alfheim,” she said with a nostalgic smile. He smiled at the memory. 

“Yes, he literally tried to drag me away until he saw you hiding behind that tree and realised I was trying to court you and he was interrupting.” 

“His face went so red!” Angrboda said with a laugh. “I’ve never heard him stutter like that before or since!” They chuckled together at the memory, their shaking shoulders leaning close to each other naturally, forgetting all the strange animosity that had brewed between them in the last week.


	6. The Breaking of the Fellowship

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's time to enact The Plan and the group go their separate ways. There is adventure to be had, and fate to challenge.

Everyone had gathered in the main hall at the appointed time, sitting on the benches and chairs that had been left there from the previous evening, all bearing similar sombre and heavy expressions. No one really said anything, they could all tell the decisions of the others by their faces and silence. They also shared a concern for Thor, who was looking more distraught than last night and there was the air of the calm before the storm about him, as though his pent-up state would either implode on itself and bring about self-ruin or explode in a blaze of violence and screaming. They hoped he could wait until the appropriate moment and then point his anger in the direction of Thanos; that should take the mad god down a notch. 

Hel was rather late in attending the meeting and they were waiting a good half an hour before a veiled servant stepped up to the group and addressed them softly. 

“The queen requires your presence at the roots of the tree,” the female voice said and the reality of the situation truly set in for each person in the group as they got to their feet and made the journey they had yesterday, towards the enormous cavern and the portals to the other realms. Each person was going out to face their destiny, to become the best of themselves, or break and fail in spite of all that was riding on the success of their missions. Tony was heading out to have all his fundamental knowledge tested and expanded to breaking point; Bruce was to see if his sense of self was as strong as he had so often thought it was not; Natasha was going forth to prove to herself that her ‘particular skill set’ was not her sole definition; Steve sought to fit in beyond the displaced soldier and create a new, balanced peace of mind that stayed true to his true self and the ever-changing worlds around him; Clint wanted to prove to himself that he was capable of bringing about great good without needing an external agent, like Shield; Angrboda was finally returning home to see that she belonged and had a place in the universe aside from aimless wanderer; Svali wanted to begin his life path, to march forward towards his destiny and embrace all that life had to offer with open arms; Loki had had his reckoning with himself, now it was time to face the wider universe and earn his right to be a part of it once more and not simply its antagonist; Thor knew this would be his king-making, his right of passage and that if he were to give all his heart to Asgard then he would be a ruler worthy of the golden world, even if it seemed she asked more than he could give. 

In the echoing cavern, Hel stood in the water weaving wisps of delicate seidr like silk in the air, it glowing the colours of the portals surrounding them, the golden figure of Frigga at Hel’s side, speaking in soft tones that they could not make out. The hearts of Loki and Thor clenched, but they had been a little hardened, for this was not the first time they had seen the former queen of Asgard since their initial reunion in Hel’s palace. 

“I hope you have come to your decisions,” Hel announced to them, her golden face glittering in the flickering light. No one said anything, but they all walked right up to the water’s edge, packs on their backs and travelling clothes drawn tightly around them. Her golden eye looked up at them and appraised their collective readiness to travel. 

“Do we have to take our shoes off or something?” Tony asked, not really wanting to. 

“Not unless you want your feet to be burned on the branches of Yggdrasil while you travel,” she said and Thor waded in first, the water not rippling or splashing when he trod his large boots into it. 

“I will send you home, Thor,” she said gently and he nodded in thanks and acknowledgement, his gaze lingering painfully on his serene mother who was not even looking at him, but spinning complex seidr which was being fed to the vibrant portals. 

“I will go to Jotunheim,” Loki said, quietly. Angrboda smiled gently from her position at the back of the party, still avoiding him, but happy that he was going to take the route to sovereignty. 

“Mother?” Hel asked. She came forward, standing warily next to Loki, wondering if he was going to protest or make things uncomfortable when they could really do without that right now. Svali moved with her and adjusted the short braid of hair that had somehow got caught in the strap of his cloak. 

“We will travel with Loki to Jotuheim to help. When he is on the throne, I will go on to Alfheim and petition Lord Frey for his help. I know there are magics we can use to take a deeper look at the plans of the Eternal One and his forces.” 

“Should we not say the name then?” Tasha asked, following the reluctance of the assembled magic-users to address their enemy by his direct name. 

“Not when we are this close to the portals; names carry power and I do not want him to find out that we know he is even in our galaxy. Avoid using his name when close to these openings in the tree.” 

“Friends, do you know where you will go?” Thor asked, worried that the Midgardians were agreeing to something completely blindly. 

“Where are we needed?” Bruce asked in return, looking to Hel. 

“The first question will be who goes back to Midgard?” Hel asked. “Someone will need to send word back of what has been discussed here and to co-ordinate their efforts with those that will be made through here.” The Avengers looked at each other, all wanted to shove that duty on someone else as they all wanted to go to new worlds and see some of the wider universe unfolding before them. Steve looked at his companions; he knew that Tony would not be returning to Earth, Bruce looked far too excited (and while he had reservations about possibly inflicting the Hulk on other worlds, he also knew Banner could not stay behind and unite the Earth in the way that they needed). He looked to Clint and Tasha and thought that as Shield agents perhaps one of them would be best suited to returning to liaise with the world’s many defence agencies, but he hesitated to suggest it; they both had the skills of first-rate spies, meaning they would be able to travel better, blend in more easily and slip out of any situation they could not talk themselves out of. Maybe the one who could offer the least in the wider universe was….himself. That was a depressing concept just as he was feeling good about adjusting to the modern world, but perhaps going beyond Earth was a little too much for him right now after all. 

“I’ll go back to Earth. I’m a military man, I’ll probably be the best in bringing soldiers to the battle,” he said, unsuccessfully filtering out the disappointment in his voice. Tony’s face lit up. 

“That’s a great idea,” he said enthusiastically. 

“Don’t sound too excited,” Steve said, a little pout threatening on his lip. 

“No, really, it’s a good idea. You’re a national icon, you’ll easily get America on our side if you back this.” 

“There is more to Earth than just America,” Tasha said with an amused smirk. 

“That’s the thing, Captain America was never just popular in America, those comics were sold all over the globe in so many languages I would need to ask Jarvis to count them!” Tony couldn’t help but gush a little and Steve went rather red, he always felt a little uncomfortable about his hero status back home, but it seemed he was going to be able to use that to do good. But no more musicals. He would not be in the chorus line again, no matter what they said. Tony laughed at something. 

“Captain Midgard!” he chuckled and Steve had to laugh with him, even if to allay his own fear about having to go home and do something that has never really been achieved in human history: unite mankind. Because that didn’t sound impossible at all, but he was gung-ho for trying. 

“I won’t take the name, but I will take the job. I mean, how hard can it be, right?” he said, the scared look on his face expressing the reservations that were in the minds of the others who knew Earth well. 

“Very well,” said Hel, not pretending to understand what had happened between the mortals. “Anthony Stark, I suggest you will feel most comfortable and most suited to go to Nidavallir.” Thor and Loki sniggered like two little boys and Tony eyed them with great suspicion. 

“And what’s so funny about that? And why am I being shipped off there?” He looked to the towering portals and tried to discern which one Hel was suggesting he walk through. He knew which ones belonged to Jotunheim, Asgard and Earth so those were out. He hoped it wasn’t the one that was framed with flowers and tall grasses, or the one which was framed with dark glass that reflected light in harsh lines rather than the natural curves of the cave. Perhaps it was the one which had metal veins thick and heavy around the seams of the portal, many metallic colours being hinted at. 

Heads turned when the sound of Loki sniggering alarmed the Avengers and intrigued his family. 

"I really don't like that sound," Tony said with an ever paranoid feeling that the god was talking about him. Loki had whispered something in Angrboda's ear which had her face splitting into a shit-eating grin which he was even more worried about. 

"What is it?" he demanded as Loki's twisted lips formed a snickering smirk. 

"I think you should go to Nidavallir, Stark," Loki said, unable to stop the laughter bubbling up inside him at the thought. 

"What's there?" he asked curiously. Thor laughed unexpectedly, subdued mirth in the face of their task, but mirth nonetheless and it suited him far better than his grim face. 

"Yes, brother!" he exclaimed and shared some kind of knowing look with Loki, as they must both have been recalling a shared memory of the place. 

"It is the land of the dwarves, Stark, the greatest creators and inventors of the nine realms. You should fit in well," Hel explained, but Tony didn't feel too relieved by this as both sides of her split lips where smiling wide, almost predatorily in a grin that looked so much like her mother. 

"'Fit in'?!" Loki repeated, looking at Hel with near tears in his eyes as he could not control the laughter that was now flowing out of him. Angrboda was having a little more success keeping it in, but she could not even make eye contact with Tony for fear of losing composure altogether. "Yes, a man of your stature should feel right at home!" he said and the aliens all burst into fits of laughter. Even Steve snickered and Tony shot him a look of indignation. 

"Not you too Rogers," he accused, his petulant voice thick with betrayal. 

"Hey, I know how it feels to be the little guy," he said and only realised he had probably made it much worse when the giggles erupted anew from the laughing group of non-Midgardians. "I didn't mean-" 

"I hate you right now." Tony griped and glared at Hel who was calming down now, bringing the mood of the rest of the giggling giants and Aesir down with her until a semblance of control came about. 

"Puns aside, Anthony Stark, Nidavallir would be a good destination for you. The dwarves are famed inventors and are the creators of some of the most incredible and powerful objects in the nine realms. The mighty relics of each world, like the spear of Gungnir, the Casket of Ancient Winters and even the flaming sword of Surtur-king were forged by the dwarves. You may be received well and they are far more likely to respond to a man of invention and mechanisms." Tony could see the mirth now vanished from her face and it irked him a little that she was able to drop the humour of before and adopt the deathly serious and utterly humourless visage she wore as the queen of Niflheim. He breathed out, a little unsteadily. 

"I suppose this is really happening. Ok, I'll do that. These doors are two-way, right?" he asked, clearly nervous and not going to great pains to hide it; there was no point in trying to convince the others that he was not at least a little afraid of the journey before him as it really was the great unknown. No Scotty to beam him out of trouble in this place. 

"Yes, you may return to here at any time you wish. And I will not be sending any of you alone, Midgardians," Hel told them. She gestured to the mouth of the cave at the top of the slope where a small group of figures stood silently, some robed and other armoured; all of them with their faces covered as they were discovering was the way of Niflheim. "I will be sending my people to help you find your way around the nine realms and speak on my behalf if and when the situation demands it." Tony nodded and wondered which one would be coming with him. There were a couple of shorter figures and he surmised that one of them would be his road-buddy as he assumed that the dwarves, from the jokes about his own height earlier, were racially shorter than the other races, especially when considered next to Thor or the ice giants.  

"Natasha Romanova and Clint Barton," Hel said, raising their interest. "I would advise you to go to Svartlfheim, the realm of the Dark Elves. They prize stealth, secrets and would admire your skills in the domain of espionage." 

"That's the most glamourous description I've heard since the last Bond film..." Clint muttered to Tasha who was appraising the offer.  

"Why the two of us, surely we can cover more ground if go to a different world each," she said, talking about interstellar travel as easily as catching flights out of JFK. 

"You are more likely to survive the intrigue of Svartlfheim if there are more than one." 

"But you're fine to send Stark on his own?" she demanded, her irritation showing as she believed she was being demeaned.  

"Tasha, she's got a point," Clint said tactfully. "Stark has his suit, just the armour means his chances of survival go up if everyone out there has strength like that lot," he said, throwing a careless hand out to the aliens. "Besides, no matter how good you are, it's good to have back up in situations like this, right?" 

"Barton, your far too good an agent to just be my back up." 

"In a world where our line of work is a way of life I think we might just need both of us at the top of our game to pull this off." Tasha regarded him, and his argument critically in her mind for a few moments. After some thought she slowly nodded and affirmed her willingness to go along with the plan. There was something of a telling silence afterwards and Bruce rolled his eyes.  

"You don't know where to send me, do you? Or should I say, you don't know where you want to send the Other Guy?" he said, a slightly indignant twitch of temper rising. He had made such progress with his self-control and the Avengers had been good for the Hulk, but when it came to something important he was treated as though he was more a liability than asset. 

"Yes," Hel said, plainly, not even pretending to spare his feelings, she was all business. "Your other side must be taken into account and your power should not be seen by the wrong eyes, or they will want to covet such a thing for themselves. I was thinking Alfheim, they who would be least offended by your rage." Hel looked to Angrboda for her opinion, as the giant had spent the most time on the world of magic than anyone else present and knew it well. She considered the unspoken question. 

"Perhaps not, I have a good relationship with Lord Freyr and would be better placed to entreaty him. I think Vanaheim would be better." 

"The realm of spring?" Loki queried, his academic interest piqued. "Would not the nature of that place possibly make his condition worse?" The Avengers took in discreet breaths of horror as they did not want to contemplate the Hulk Mark 2.  

"I do not think so, after all, it could more easily affect Banner instead of his other side." She turned to face Bruce and addressed him directly. "Vanaheim is a world that is quietly ever-growing. A more peaceful place you will not find in the nine realms." Hel drew a breath to take issue with that statement, but Angrboda interrupted her interruption. "The realm of the dead does not count," she said. Hel closed her mouth. "But its peace will be our problem, they will not enter into any conflict or effort easily. They will resist you with their lazy logic and personal idleness; the most effort they like to expend is in verbal discussion. They will appreciate your intellect and if you can prove stimulating enough you might actually shake them out of their tree." Bruce was still finding it rather strange to be looking up into the deep red eyes of a giant who was much larger than him but only a few days ago was a small human woman who was shorter than him.  

"I don't know much different about the other worlds, I suppose I am in your hands," he said, levelling a sincere stare at Angrboda, telling her with his eyes that he was trusting her with his life, and no doubt the lives of others. 

"That leaves Musspellheim," Hel said and looked to the group of courtiers assembled as still as the dead at the top of the slope and contemplated how much she could get involved and send one of her own out to the world. 

"Send Svali," Frigga said, the first words she had uttered since they had come down to the cavern. She also moved, her golden robes shining in the lights thrown by the portals and looked to, or through, the young giant. The Jotun in question gulped. 

"I have spent some time there, Surtur knows me," he said. "I did offer earlier..." Hel only glanced at her brother before turning her penetrating stare to the dead queen of Asgard, wondering what she was up to. Her courtiers were rarely able to speak or act on their own initiative as they were dead and only animate because they had been filled with the essence of the dread Hel. However, Frigga was powerful in life and it was no surprise that she would be so powerful in death. Hel was also not a fool, she knew that if what remained of her grandmother had made the effort to reach through the misty fog of death then it must be important and the Half-Queen would respect that. 

"Only after father can spare you from Jotunheim. In all probability it will take much longer to get Jotunheim on side that it will be to convince the fire giants." Angrboda brought a hand up to her face to discreetly hide the small smile that she was trying to supress; Hel had only met her little brother yesterday, but was already behaving like a protective older sister. It was a very rare and beautiful moment for the parents to see some glimpse of familial relations, and was something they had so missed; Hel had been the only one (with the obvious exception of Svali) to have had any kind of normal childhood, as Fenrir and Jormungandr had got into such trouble so early in their lives.  

"I'll do it," Svali affirmed and Angrboda touched his arm gently in support. He looked briefly to her, but his gaze, perhaps predictability, went almost straight up to Loki, looking for a reaction or approval. It was strange for him to look to his side and see both of his parents and was something that he hoped he would be able to get used to if they were able to reconcile their differences. Loki was indeed looking to his son and gave him a pleased smile that had Svali fighting to hold back his beaming smile as he was rushed with positive emotions about his father.  

Hel waved her hand and the people who had been waiting at the top of the slope descended in typically slow fashion and silently paired off with those they would be accompanying.  

"Now is an auspicious time to go. My people will tell you what you need to know once you get to the other side, many of you will have some travelling to do. The Norns be with you," she said, and drew up to her full height in a gesture of formality. 

"Good luck, guys," Steve said as the other Avengers stepped up to the colourful portals, the lights flashing as though through liquid stained glass. His heart was beating hard in his chest, he was going to miss his friends and worry about them every day, but he knew he had his own job to do and they would all have to do their part for this to work. Part of him was nervous to go back to Earth on his own, explain all this to Fury and try to get the help they needed, but he was also worried about returning to a world he felt he had not fully adjusted to yet, but he drew strength from all the support his friends had given him so far and he could always wait until after this saga was ended to get Stark to teach him how to use the coffee machine in the tower.  

"Oh!" Tony exclaimed as he remembered something and was suddenly rooting around in his pocket. He pulled out what looked like a phone and threw it to Steve, who caught it easily. 

"Those are the house keys, you've got the kids while I'm gone," he grinned. Steve looked down and realised that there was probably a mini-Jarvis in the glass and aluminium square. Steve's first thought was to the cars in the basement, that while all of them had been made while he was frozen, he still had developed something of an appreciation for the fine collection of machines Tony had kept. 

"I'd better see you all on the other side," Steve called out to them. Tony winked at him and stepped forward. The thin veil in the gaping mouth of the ore-rich portal before him vanished a blast of warm, stuffy air ruffled Tony's hair. There was a strong tang of metals in the air and small whisps of smoke were puffing through. The colours of the portal were blinding in their reddish rusty intensity, but the light only illuminated the look of utter excitement on the inventor's face and his tightening grip on the handle of his suit-in-a-case. With confidence, he stepped forward and was quickly consumed by rusty reddish light that curled around his form before rushing after him to the world of Nidavallir.  

"Bruce," Tasha called and the scientist looked over to her. They shared a look, promising each other that they would be coming back to Earth for their dinner and with a pleased smile the doctor took a step forward. The shield over the metallic portal closed and the veil of the door to Vanaheim opened. They were expecting a violent gust of wind or something, but instead there was stillness in the portal, except for in the intensity of the verdant light, deep sea and sky blues swimming through. The light was undoubtedly serene and Bruce looked hopeful as he stepped through, accompanied by the subtle scent of honeyed flowers, the light swimming around him before swirling over his form and he was gone from view.  

"What was that about?" Clint asked Tasha, who was already walking up to the portal, the barrier coming down. The pungent aroma of spices immediately filtered through and the deep blues and purples of the Svartlfeim gate tinted her vibrant hair strange colours. Clint was too busy thinking about the strange moment between Tasha and Bruce when she went forward without him. He stepped up quickly and grabbed her arm as they went forward together. They were immediately hidden from sight and the lights moved and swirled energetically for a while, before calming.  

"Father," Hel said and stood before the door to Jotunheim. Loki looked nervously at the door, feeling the weight of his fate falling on him in a way that was so tangible he felt as though a cold giant's hand was strangling the heart in his chest. 

"Loki," Thor said, noticing the rigidity in his brother's body. He gently spun Loki around to face him, locking their eyes. 

"You will make a tremendous king," he said with utter sincerity. "The throne will suit you. I look forward to the day I can welcome the king of the ice giants into my... my hall and my brother." Loki put a hand on Thor's wide arm and gripped in a gesture of familiarity.  

"Thank you," he said, so quietly Thor was not sure he heard it. "You have made a good brother." Thor's chest swelled with joy and pride and he smiled widely. This time it was Loki who initiated the warm embrace and Thor looked as though they had won the war already, he was so overjoyed to have Loki's affections once more, and by implication, his forgiveness. When they parted, Loki took a moment to concentrate and then his body morphed into that of the large Jotun who would be king. Thor gave him an appreciative look. 

While his courage was still with him, he touched Hel's shoulder in a fatherly sort of way instead of embracing her (he was always wary of her left, dead, side which held dense magic and was not always the safest to touch) and approached the door. 

"Thank you Thor," Angrboda whispered to the Aesir king, grateful for all the care he had given to her love and she took her place beside Loki, but still not touching, ready to return to her homeworld after an absence of many centuries. Once they had stepped forward, they did not disappear instantly, it took some time for the light to coalesce around them and settle back into its pattern. Svali did not immediately follow, but instead looked rather nervously to his sister.  

"I know we have not really met before, but it has been nice to see you," he said, looking every bit as young as he was. Hel's beautiful living side looked toward him and smiled genuinely.  

"I hope in the future we will have more time," she said. Svali nodded enthusiastically. He looked over to Thor. 

"Good luck uncle!" he said and ran through the gateway, the light parting as he sped through the light until he disappeared. As the barrier to the world rose again, the harsh winds of biting ice and drifting snow came to a halt, weather that had gone unnoticed by the ice giants in their natural forms. 

Hel guided Thor to the portal that clearly belonged to Asgard, the colours of radiant summer pouring through in wheat and opal, solid gold growing like ivy up the side of the portal his decimated homeland. 

“You have a long road ahead of you, Thor,” Hel said, her grainy voice low and as soft as its rasp could be. “The path to kinghood is never easy for the most worthy of kings. In his ascent to the throne, Odin slew the First Among Giants, Ymir and he come to be the greatest king of Asgard. You now step up to defeat the Eternal One, one of the scourges of the universe and overshadow your father’s precedent.” 

“Then I will hope that the first chapter in the history of my reign is not the slaughter of the nine realms.” 

“If you want it enough, you will fight hard enough for it.” 

“I wish I had your wisdom as I step up to the throne,” Thor lamented. 

“I have the wisdom and hindsight of the dead to help me, Thor, you have your own wit and little more. Though you have your friends, the fierce Avengers of Midgard and your brother and they are the best allies that you can have at the edge of this new age.” 

“What do I do?” he asked, looking fearfully at the door. Now it was just himself and his niece (Frigga was so still and silent she may well have not been there) he was beginning to feel the doubts creeping in and weakening his hammer arm. 

“You are a king at heart, you will know what to do when the time comes. Though permit me to pass on the single best piece of advice on rule I was ever given.” 

“What is that?” he asked eagerly. 

“The people are servants to the king and the king is servant to his people. Now, you should go.” She ushered him forward and the veil dropped at the mouth of the portal. Golden light streamed into the cavern and lit Thor in the radiant halo of his realm. He brought his chin up, tightened the grip of Mjollnir in his hand and pulled the dark cloak Hel had given him around him. Even he could tell there was subtle seidr woven into the fabric of the garment, and it would help hide his easily recognisable visage from unfriendly eyes, allowing allies to spot him when an enemy might not. 

The portal thrummed with use and the barrier went back up, leaving the cavern darker and silent in comparison to how it had been before. Hel turned to Frigga, wondering what was left of the queen was feeling about seeing her sons walking off to face their destinies. The golden Aesir said nothing though, but was clearly looking to the portals where Thor and Loki had departed. The Half-Queen did have something to say, perhaps to herself, perhaps to Frigga, perhaps as a prayer to the Norns: 

“Nine heroes for nine realms. Let us see how they do.”


End file.
